Supercharged by magical fission, the flame breath surged forth like a tempestuous downpour. A glaring pillar of blue flame shot straight toward the sky—its outer sheath a dreadful azure, its inner core a blinding white.
Everywhere the fire passed, the air warped under searing heat, as though even time itself bent beneath the extreme blaze.
Meanwhile, the silver dragon's breath was an interwoven fusion of ice, gale-force winds, radiant brilliance, and multiple magical aspects, ultimately forming a pillar of light brimming with holy order and stupendous energy.
The flawless, pure-white breath descended from the heavens, resembling divine punishment brought down by Bahamut himself.
Across a distance of over a thousand meters, the two torrents of breath hurtled toward each other, on the verge of collision.
The waste fell momentarily silent, as if dumbstruck by the monstrous magical reaction.
Then, the two radically different forces violently collided. A tremendous magical detonation erupted, and a colossal mushroom cloud bloomed high in the air.
Instantly, blinding brilliance tore through the smoke, illuminating the entire heavens in a flash. The sky turned incandescently bright, as though a second sun had risen.
The light was so searing that mortal eyes could not look upon it directly.
BOOM!
A thunderous boom rattled Anzeta, leaving everyone in the vicinity with ringing ears and reeling heads.
As the light spread, an immense shockwave of energy rippled outward from the epicenter. Like an invisible tsunami, it surged at breathtaking speed, laying waste to everything in its path.
SWOOSH!
The former encampment disintegrated under the shockwave's impact, reduced to ruins in an instant. Trees were uprooted, boughs and leaves scattered to the winds. Dirt and boulders were torn from the earth, whipping into towering whirlwinds of dust and rock.
Had the armies of both sides not already retreated several li away, they might well have been annihilated by this surge, perhaps entirely wiped out.
Hundreds of players, who hadn't minded sticking around for the spectacle, were engulfed by the aftershocks.
"Help—!"
"Ye gods, is that divine retribution?"
"Get down! Everyone hit the dirt! Don't get any closer!"
Even so, many were knocked flat or sent flying by the monstrous wave. Those who managed to remain on their feet struggled desperately, clinging to whatever they could reach as if grasping at lifelines just to keep themselves anchored.
Shielded by rings of guards, Leo Bosque crouched behind a low earthen knoll, sprawled ungracefully across the ground as he stared up at the magical catastrophe in the heavens.
"Look. They can destroy everything you hold dear in an instant."
The low voice sounded once more.
The hatred in his eyes deepened further, his lips continuously muttering, "Monsters like this... monsters that threaten the duchy..."
"Must be wiped out completely! Kill... kill them!"
Without even realizing it, a twisted vortex began to swirl within his pupils.
After the violent blast from the initial clash subsided, the duel between Oszedro's Breath of Bahamut and Cassius's Primordial Breath raged on, gradually settling into a deadlocked stalemate.
Searing blue-and-white flame clashed fiercely in midair with ice, radiance, and gale-force wind. The flames blurred under the onslaught of frost, while the ice sizzled and popped beneath the roasting heat.
Freezing, thawing, and vaporizing unfolded incessantly, churning up billowing clouds of white mist.
Nullifying yet resisting one another, the two formed a magnificent spectacle above the wasteland.
The surrounding air roiled in absolute chaos under the violent forces; currents spun wildly into localized whirlwinds. Temperatures over the waste fluctuated erratically under their alternating influence, the ground glazed in frost one moment and steaming with blistering heat the next.
In the eyes of the watching creatures, the silver dragon and the red dragon stood locked in confrontation—one to the left and one to the right, one high in the heavens and one grounded upon the earth—pitting their cataclysmic breaths against each other, neither yielding a single inch.
Olivia and Christina had been blasted back by the shockwave of the collision, slamming together into a massive mountain of ice.
The two young female dragons, one blue and one silver, became tangled in a heap.
"No—Grandfather!"
"Stop! I'm still alive!"
Olivia scrambled frantically to break free from the blue dragon, flapping her wings to take flight once more.
Yet Christina seized the silver dragon's hind leg and shrieked, "Shameless silver dragon!"
"I won't let you disrupt this sacred duel!"
Blocked again and again, Olivia grew angry. With a swipe of her claw, she conjured a head-sized orb of force that hammered the blue dragon to the ground.
"Get off me! I'm trying to save Cassius!"
"That is Lord Bahamut's power! Do you want him to die?"
Braving the raging storm and torrents of energy, Olivia flew into the air, using a spell to amplify her voice as she pleaded loudly, "Grandfather! Stop!"
"I'm not dead! And I haven't been eaten! Cassius isn't some irredeemable monster!"
Pouring out a cascade of ice from above, Oszedro finally noticed Olivia's presence. Stunned, the uncontrollable rage burning within his heart began to ebb.
But even Oszedro could not fully control the power of the Breath of Bahamut.
Infused with a sliver of divine power from the Lord of the North Wind, once unleashed, it could not be ended easily until evil was utterly destroyed.
What was more, the red dragon was continuously blasting his terrifying fission breath. The moment Oszedro stopped, he would have to face the brunt of that Primordial Breath—a price he could not afford to pay.
"Please stop, Grandfather!"
Olivia cried in desperation.
Yet before the cataclysmic might wielded by both sides, the ten-odd-meter-long silver dragon appeared pitifully small.
The horrific magical reaction continued unchecked. Two mighty forces of the highest order clashed and ground against each other, continuously altering the entire landscape of the waste.
The current clan chief of the Melvold Clan, a prime adult male silver dragon named Leonard, looked up at the young silver dragon in the sky and called out loudly:
"Olivia! Come back! This is not a battle you can take part in!"
Leonard gazed up at the battered, wounded Oszedro, then over at the fire-wreathed red dragon in the distance, who was pouring every ounce of focus into his breath. A look of grim resolve flashed across his slit pupils.
"Clansmen, that evil dragon cannot move right now!"
"But... the tradition..."
Some silver dragons in the flight hesitated.
In an anxious voice, Leonard said, "Elder Oszedro is the guardian of Melvold! He cannot be wrong!"
"We must aid the elder! Justice and order shall achieve the ultimate victory!"
At his rallying cry, the silver dragons behind him beat their wings and took to the sky one after another.
For silver dragons, who were adept at pragmatism, fighting with numerical superiority was rarely considered shameful. As natural nemeses to red dragons, silver dragons frequently summoned allies to overcome these brutal, solitary foes.
This time, however, their opponent was not fighting alone.
"Shameless silver dragons!"
"Don't you dare take a single step toward His Highness! You are insulting the dragon race's great traditions!"
Christina roared, leading twelve blue dragon guards into the sky to meet them.
Spewing arcs of lightning, the blue dragons of the Faria Clan tangled with the silver dragons of the Melvold Clan, reigniting a clash between two dragon flights steeped in long-standing grievances.
"I am Master's most loyal servant!"
Tinia screeched fiercely. The atavistic white dragon, nearly twenty meters in length, surged into the air and plunged into the melee, violently pinning an adult silver dragon beneath her.
Chapter 331